


the hour of the wolf

by manbunjon



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alpha Ben Solo, Alpha Kylo Ren, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Claiming, Claiming Bites, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mating Rituals, Mutual Pining, Omega Rey (Star Wars), Prince Ben Solo, Public Claiming, Queen Rey (Star Wars), Safe Sane and Consensual, Semi-Public Sex, Slow Burn, Woman on Top, claiming ceremony, consensual claiming, more rain than pride & prejudice (2005), sensual rain kisses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-01-15 15:10:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21255362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manbunjon/pseuds/manbunjon
Summary: When night had fallen and the hunt was set to begin the stern beta priestess had led them from the chamber and toward the forest, carrying nothing but a flickering torch and a scowl.Once outside the warm walls of the palace Rey had been exposed to the elements, and the excitement and anticipation she had felt at the prospect of meeting her alpha grew dull. The rain that fluttered down had been slight but freezing, dotting her skin like mist, and the chill, combined with the sickening scents of nearly a dozen lubricious omegas, had made Rey anxious and resentful, seconds from announcing she would not be participating in the year's hunt.Then they had reached the forest—and she had smelled him.





	1. prologue — home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"It had been nearly a decade since Alderaan had hosted the last hunt...."_

> _❝ In the enveloping darkness_  
_Some wolf with an edge to his appetite_  
_ Will come whisper in my ear. ❞ _
> 
> — Xu Yunuo (徐玉諾), _ As the Sun Slides Down behind the Mountain_

** Prologue **

It had been nearly a decade since Alderaan had hosted the last hunt.

Ben Organa Solo still remembered his cousin's participation, recalling the way Mitaka had fretted alongside the fringe of the Alderaanian wood, his nose upturned in the cool mountain air as his body thrummed with the insatiable desire to find and claim an omega. _His_ omega. 

Six alphas had come to Aldera from across the planet, and though their features had been different as the sun and moon, all six males had been alike in their physicality, their vigour, their complete, unflinching alpha-ness. All tall and broad-shouldered, so noticeably virile that many of the serving girls had been locked away before sunrise, lest they go after the alphas before the start of the hunt at nightfall. 

He had been unpresented at such a young age and had been shuttered away for his own safety. But after hours of relentless begging, Han Solo had succumbed to Ben's pleas and allowed him to watch the start of the hunt from his solar's balcony, chuckling amicably when he had looked up to find his son watching in rapture, his excited face wedged up between the spokes of the railing. 

Ben had watched as the alphas milled around the outskirts of the wood, strong bodies thrumming with nervous energy so infectious that even from so far above he had been able to feel it, as though the excitement had spread and consumed the entire city. 

He had watched his father approach Mitaka, dropping a heavy hand to the his shoulder and whispering something to the alpha that Ben had not been able to hear from so high above. But whatever it was had seemed to soothe the boy, for Mitaka had even offered his uncle a small smile and an affectionate hug, something Ben had never seen an alpha do during rut. Then again, Han Solo had always had a certain effect on people.

After what had felt like an eternity the sun had set and, after the Alderaanian priest had said his words and performed his blessings, the hunt had officially begun. 

Ben had known the moment the omegas had been released from their chamber and started to run, watching in confusion and curiosity at the way the alphas had lifted their heads to scent the air, taking in the odours of the women that had started to work through the wood. He had been able to hear them, giggling and calling out for their mates, and the way the alphas had responded had been like nothing Ben had ever seen before. 

The alphas had sprinted forth at a breakneck speed, as though propelled forward by some unseen force, but Ben's governess had come for him just as they reached the trees, and sternly ushered him to bed. He hadn't known, not for years to come, that his mother had been shielding him from the events of that night, from the true purpose of the hunt that had not yet been explained to him. 

Ben had listening to the howls that rent the cool air, though he knew no wolves would dare be about, and curled up in the darkness, an unfamiliar pressure swirling in his belly. His ears pricked, attuned to any of the sounds of the hunt that drifted up toward the closed windows of the castle. He listened for longer than he intended, trying to make sense of the lilting shrieks and pained groans that cut the quiet air, and just as he had begun to sink into sleep he realised with a start that he recognised one of the baying howls that echoed through the icy moors of Alderaan and knew at once that Mitaka had found his mate. 

At barely nine summers Ben Solo he had not understood nearly anything about the hunt. He had merely been excited for the feasting and the parades and all the bustle of new faces in the capitol city. He hadn't understood what could be so enticing about an omega's scent that would render alphas nearly powerless to resist or what it meant to be claimed by an alpha. 

Even when he had awoken on the morning of his sixteenth nameday to find the glands on the side of his neck swollen and itching, he had not understood. Even during his first rut, when fever had consumed him and lust had driven him wild, he had still not understood. 

But now, as he tipped his head back and found her scent clinging to the cold air, thick and pleasant and positively _calling_ him, Ben Solo finally knew what Mitaka had scented in the air that evening so long ago, finally understood why the demeanor of the alpha had changed in an instant, why he had broken through the trees as speeds nearing inhuman, why he had broken his fast the next morning with the skin of his neck bruised purple and swollen in the familiar curve of teeth. 


	2. unmade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"His hand felt heavy upon her arm, his strong fingers leaving a path of burnishing warmth across her skin where his bare flesh touched hers as he moved languidly down her arm. _
> 
> _He was warm, so astonishingly, consumingly warm, that even though the air around them was dry and brittle as the rest of Alderaan, and Rey was still attuned to the desert heat of Jakku after all these years, she found she no longer minded the chill, not when in his arms it might as well have been summer."_

> ❝ Those are the voices of my brothers, darling.  
I love the company of wolves. ❞
> 
> — Angela Carter

** Part II **

Rey felt him long before she saw him.

The mountainous air was unforgiving on her bare feet, the icy air raking at the back of her throat like clawing fingers, the punch of cold air causing her lungs to contract tight as a fist with every sharp intake of breath. 

She was running, the only sounds to keep her company the crunch of dry leaves below her feet and the whisper of wind through bare branches. She hurried through the aged trees, jumping over the roots that twisted beneath her bare feet as she tore through the trees, drawn through the wood as though an invisible string were tugging her forward, pulling her toward something unseen, something unknown.

Rey could feel him. In the hibernal breezes that whipped through the trees, in the air that thrummed with energy— as though the Gods was whispering to her in a language she could not understand. He was there in every part of her, with her in every sense of the word. She could feel his call through her body like a charge, in the tightness of her belly, in the blood that coursed through her hard and fast, in muscle and bone and sinew.

It was as though he were an extension of her, a part of her she had not thought missing until she had lifted her nose to the air and caught his scent, so strong and fragrant and so deep inside of her that it felt as though she would cease to exist if she did not have him beside her. 

Rey wore nothing other than the cotton night rail that had been draped over her shoulders hours earlier by the stern beta priestess who had been charged with their care. At the time she had shivered, had grumbled under her breath about the chill of the forest and the indecency of wearing spun cotton so thin that her nipples were visible beneath. 

When night had fallen and the hunt was set to begin the priestess had led them from the chamber and toward the forest, carrying nothing but a flickering torch and a scowl. 

Once outside the warm walls of the palace Rey had been exposed to the elements, and the excitement and anticipation she had felt grew dull. The rain that fluttered down had been slight but freezing, dotting over her skin like mist, and the chill, combined with the sickening scents of nearly a dozen lubricious omegas, had made Rey anxious and resentful, seconds from announcing she would not be participating in the year's hunt. 

Then they had reached the forest— and she had smelled _him_. 

All other scents, the trees and the omegas and the beta priestess, had faded completely, replaced by something different, something completely _other_. It was honeyed and warm, without the ropy, sickeningly saccharine sweetness of the omegas', all spices and redolent heat, instantly recognisable as completely masculine and uniquely alpha. 

She had turned, looked over her shoulder to see if the other omegas were as enraptured by the scents as she, and when she was met with closed eyes, tightened fists, brows dotted with sweat Rey knew that they had. 

And, like the other omegas who had started to fret with anxiety, desperate to reach their alphas, Rey had given up all complaints, all attempts at returning to the castle. She no longer wanted a cloak or a pair of boots. She only wanted _him_. 

The scent of him—_ her alpha_, the back of her mind whispered deliciously— was stronger than that of the pine or the wood that enveloped her like perfume, somehow both calming and exhilarating in the very same breath. Every nerve in her body was humming, trembling, calling out for her alpha, begging him to take her up into his arms and lay claim to her. 

The grass beneath her feet was icy and hard, the cold earth that squeezed beneath her toes making her nose wrinkle in distaste. She turned, following the scent, moving through the trees faster than she ever had, drawn forward to some unseen location, to some unseen alpha. 

Rey ran her tongue along her bottom lip nervously, wondering if she could truly taste him in the cold wind. But, to her surprise and disappointment, she came up short, tasting nothing in the air but sweet autumnal pine and the heavy petrichor of moist earth, just barely present over the acetous taste of the wine that stained the inside of her lips. 

She was surprised to find the taste of wine remained on her lips even now, overly sweetened and spiced generously to cover the cutting bitterness of the heat-inducing herbs that had been brewed into it by the Alderaanian priestesses. The induced heat felt more intense than any other had ever been, the sweet draught melded with the blaze of the silver full moon overhead and left her warm and dizzy, charged, thrumming with anticipation. It was as though something just beneath her flushed skin was humming, threatening to spring forth.

The air she gulped down was crisp and clean, cold against the inside of her nose, but not unpleasant. She had long ago parted from the other omegas, their scents no longer filling her senses and distracting from the sweet, enthralling cologne that she followed through the grounds. 

Her head felt muzzy, though its lightness had little to do with the exertion of so long running uphill, and more to do with his scent dashing to her head, leaving her blood rushing in her ears, her head and heart pounding, every part of her body starved for him. 

For years she had allowed her mind to wander to him during those long nights she had spent alone in Jakku, dreaming of an alpha who would come for her, who would spirit her away and protect her when she grew tired of protecting herself. His face had been floating in and out of her mind for as long as she could remember, a dark figure whose face had always remained a mystery. He could be anyone, this alpha she knew nothing about, but she would always been his. 

Rey slowed as she came upon the edge of a clearing, realising that the cold she had begun to feel was from a light dusting of rain that misted in the air. It cooled her feverish body— only slightly— Rey feeling as thought the water should sizzle as it touched her hot skin. 

She searched the darkness for him, letting her eyes linger over the trees as though hoping if she stared long enough she could see through solid wood. Her hands balled into fists at her sides to keep from reaching for him and grasping onto nothingness, her bottom lip sore where her teeth worried at it. 

Her body called for him, ached for him, and she wondered if he could hear it. Wondered if he knew how she burned for him, craved the weight of his body upon hers, ached to feel the pleasure and pain of his teeth as they marked her forever as his. 

His scent coated the back of her throat like the reminisce of some fine ale, the spices of his fragrance still dancing along her taste buds and causing a prickling warmth to spread through her. She could smell him, taste him, slowing to let her alpha bathe her in his scent. Like balsam and cedarwood, warm spiced ale and sweet fruits and the fine fenugreek oil she had so often seen at the markets of Jakku. 

She had known many alphas before. The boys who had worked at the Outpost all those years ago, the men of the Resistance, even kind-eyed Leia, the only female alpha Rey had ever know, who had gently urged her to bar the doors to her cabin during those nights when the knights of the Resistance had begun their ruts.

But they hadn't been _her_ Alpha. 

Never the person whose soul had been fashioned by the Gods to compliment hers, whose arms were made to protect her and envelop her and keep her safe in a way she had always craved but never known. He would fill the place deep inside her chest that had always felt somehow hollow, emptier still as she had aged and those close to her had begun to find their mates. 

Perhaps that was why Rey had found herself offering no hesitation to Leia's invitation that she join the other unbonded omegas in the hunt. Or perhaps it was because she had felt something, from the very first moments she had stepped foot in Alderaan, something in the air— the crackle of energy, the silent pull toward the trees, toward the very clearing she stood in now. 

Her bare feet sank into the soft earth as she turned on her heel, the gentle fog that rolled down from the mountains nearly blinding as she searched the trees. She could smell the heat that rolled of his skin, the scent only growing stronger as he approached, until she could practically taste it on the breeze that sent her dark hair tumbling down her bare shoulders. 

She couldn't help but wonder what they would smell like after the claiming. 

Her thighs trembled from the strain of running so injudiciously through the woods, but the burnishing warmth that bloomed between her thighs had little to do with exertion. Heat spread through her with all the voracity and quickness of flame moving through dry brush, uncoiling slowly in her belly and flourishing through her. 

The swollen gland on the side of her neck felt as though it were being pricked by a hundred dulled pins, and when the hair on the back of her neck raised to stand on end, she knew he was close. 

Rey licked her bottom lip, rolling her shoulders and arching her back like a kitten preening beneath the sun. Being so close to her alpha caused a new heat to bloom in the centre of her chest, building in strength and blooming outward until it felt as though she could barely swallow the unrelenting flare of desire that swelled in her throat. It sloped down the column of her neck and butterflied slowly through her chest, until her belly trembled with delectation and her nipples hardened beneath her shift, every inch of her body aching for the touch of her mate. 

The apples of her cheeks blazed, the blood that rushed in her ears deafening, and despite the silence of his approach, he could feel that every inch of her body had already become sensitive to the presence of an alpha, of _her_ alpha. 

He approached her as the lion approaches the doe, slow and deliberate, careful not to spook the trembling maiden. His footsteps were soft and slow as he came through the trees, for though his mind screamed for her touch and his body threatened to burn up without her to soothe the flames, he didn't reach for her. 

He stood at her back, close enough to feel the heat that emanated from her, rising off her skin like steam from a hot meal on a cold morning. Her body sang for his touch, desire and arousal radiating off her skin like flares of moonlight, blinding and warm and so bright that he could smell nothing else, see nothing else. Only her, his _omega_, his _woman_. 

_His_. 

The cotton shift that had been draped over her hid little from him. He watched as the heat of her cheeks sloped lower, overwhelming the rest of her face with a deep, flushed pink that curled down her neck and presumably across her heaving chest. He wondered what colour she'd be when he made her come. 

He reached forward, capturing her elbow in his large hand and just taking a moment to touch her, hold her, his fingers closing around her wrist, finding the pulse that fluttered there. 

His fingers splayed across her fervent flesh imperturbably, as though aiming to soothe the anxiety that rolled off her skin like early morning fog across the moors to prickle in the air around him. It was as though something inside her had shifted, every ounce of fear suddenly wilting and washing away, leaving her feeling the same giddy warmth brought on by a cup of strong Corellian whiskey. 

With a start Rey realised that she could no longer smell his scent in the wind. The air had grown heady with the smell of _them_, their perfume of their mingled scents nearly palpable in the whip of cold wind that pulled strands of dark hair from her braid and left them fluttering into her face. 

His hand felt heavy upon her arm, his strong fingers leaving a path of burnishing warmth across her skin where his bare flesh touched hers as he moved languidly down her arm. He was warm, so astonishingly, consumingly warm, that even though the air around them was dry and brittle as the rest of Alderaan, and Rey was still attuned to the desert heat of Jakku after all these years, she found she no longer minded the chill, not when in his arms it might as well have been summer. 

"Alpha..." she breathed. The words made them both shiver. 

She craved his approval, as one craves food or shelter. She had yearned for his favour far longer than she cared to admit, not even to herself, on those barren nights when she had lain in the Jakku darkness and dreamt on an alpha to fill the empty hamlet, to wrap his arms around her and lay her head upon his chest so she could hear his heart beat against her ear.

The fingers of his free hand lifted to toy with the end of her long braid for a moment before he set about undoing it, his fingers dextrous and gentle as they made quick work of unlacing the long plait. The aroma of jasmine and sandalwood dispel into the cold air, the perfumed oils she had combed into her hair the previous night growing so strong that the rough fingers at the head of her spine stilled, as though too overcome to continue their task. 

Her night rail had shifted as she ran, the neckline pulled back just enough to reveal a small cleft of skin beneath the notch of her spine. His fingers twitched toward it, brushing the pads of his fingers across the warm, bare flesh that stood there, practically singing for his touch. A soft breath escaped her before she could stop it, a contented moan echoing in her ears and filling the air around them like the ghostly echo of a song. 

A deep rumble moved through his chest, vibrating against her back as he let out a low, contented sigh. _Approval_, Rey thought, her heart jumping into the hollow of her throat. _Her alpha approved of her._

The thought made her keen, the fist of nervousness that had constricted in her chest suddenly losing its rigidity. A strong hand fell to wrap possessively around her hip and pull her to him so, bracing her against his hardy chest. His palm was so big that it nearly spanned the width of her waist and she let her palm fall to rest over it, marveling at how much smaller it seemed than his own.

Rey, bedded comfortably against his strong chest, let her head fall leisurely to the side, exposing the curve of her vulnerable neck. The alpha let out a low growl, clearly pleased, and his scent rippled in the air, heady, thick, and so sweet that Rey imagined she could taste it if she tried.

Her alpha bent to bury his face between her shoulder and neck, inhaling so deeply that Rey swore she could feel it all the way down to her bare toes. His nose and the pad of his bottom lip slid languorously down the column of her throat as he scented her, and by the time he nosed at the gland on the side of her neck, she was practically shaking, every fibre of her body howling for his touch, his bite, his claim.

The effect of her scent was potent and quick, threatening to unravel him.

His blood roared as it rushed passed his ears, the rigidity of the cock that pressed to her back seeming to grow all the more tumescent from the might of her scent, and his hips jerked— so that Rey could feel firsthand what the touch of his omega had done to him. The alpha buried deep within was screaming for him to sink his teeth into the swollen pink gland beneath his aquiline nose and claim her forever as his, warming his blood until it was everywhere. Until there was nothing else but her.

Rey's lips burned with ache as her fingers reached back for him. She mapped his features delicately, as though aiming to categorise and memorise every inch of him. She wanted nothing more than to kiss and be kissed, to measure the margins of his well-muscled chest, to pull at the laces of his breeches and take him inside of her so that she could finally feel what it was to be whole.

Her fingers found familiarity in the features she had long ago become acquainted with, knowing then what she had perhaps known all along. 

She knew his scent, his touch, his face. The intonations of his voice and the way his words always seemed somehow softer when spoken to her. She knew the weight of his dark eyes upon her back and the feel of his callused fingers skimmings over hers, and the way warmth always seemed to bloom from the centre of each tender touch. 

Rey shifted in his arms, preening beneath the touch of his lips to her skin. He kissed her chin, her cheeks, her brow, besetting her face with soft, hurried kisses.

"Rey." said Ben Solo. The way he said her name made her moan softly, as though he had just recited lines of sweet poetry just against the shell of her ear and his voice was ragged and hoarse, as though he had spent hours screaming for something. Screaming _for her, _she realised with a pang of excitement. 

She preened under his gaze, his touch, and turned to meet his gaze. Rey told herself that she had not known him. But perhaps she had— perhaps she had known all along. 

"Alpha."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to alyssa, mel, po, des, and especially pearl for helping me with a part of this chapter! you guys are the best 💕


	3. the call of the wolf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _His touch was wild, animal, raw, the way his dark eyes swept over her leaning no confusion as to why he was known as the Wolf of Alderaan from Aldera all the way to Jakku._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **PLEASE READ NOTE:** the day that i posted this (about a month/a month and a half ago) ao3 was down/doing maintenance work and there was a glitch with my subscribers that caused only **some** of you to be notified about this update! it also caused this chapter to be shown as being posted in november 2019 when it was actually posted in february 2020. 
> 
> **so! to stop any confusion, i've just deleted it and reposted it again completely.** if you're already read the chapter then you're completely fine and nothing has changed, if you haven't already read the chapter then here you go! i hope you enjoy it :)

> ❝ When one runs with the wolves, one  
must howl with the pack. ❞
> 
> — Angela Carter

**Part III**

Ben Solo dragged his nose along her skin, his lips continuing their languid pilgrimage along the sacred land at her naked throat. The scent gland at the mitre of her neck was thrumming, nearly singing, the fingers she ran across it doing little to quench its insatiable ache to be touched, to be bitten, to be properly tasted by her alpha. Only her alpha.

The pad of his thumb skated across her gland. It was the ghost of a touch, just firm enough to make her tremble, leaning into him, seeking more. Gooseflesh rose on her arms and rippled across her skin, and had he not been so completely overcome himself, the sight might have made Ben smirk, might have brought him a perverse sort of pleasure to know he had undone her so.

"Rey...." said the Prince of Alderaan, as though testing the weight of the word on his tongue. "Rey...."

He whispered her name like the verse of a sacred hymn, as though it was something so precious that he was afraid to speak it above a whisper, lest he speak it too brusquely and break the spell that had engulfed them.

He adjusted her weight in his arms, holding her so tightly to him that she could feel the unrelenting heat of his body through her thin shift, and she basked in it like a kitten stretching out beneath the sun. His arm slid around her middle, the warm palm that had flattened over her belly seeming to stretch across her entire waist.

Despite the cold in the air and the mountainous chill that lapped at her skin Rey felt only warmth, as though there was a burnishing fire within her that was struggling to be free from the cage of her chest. The urge to unwind her shift and pull it over her head made her fingers itch, the flushed skin beneath seeming to tingle where it was covered, singing for touch. But not just any touch, his touch. The touch of her alpha.

Rey craved his touch, fixated only on the feel of his fingers against her bare skin, the drag of his tongue over her flesh. She ached to bury her face against the plains of his bare breast and inhale, to memorise the taste of his sweat, the smell of his skin, his alpha cologne, whatever natural scent given off by his skin that had always made him smell so unbearably good— even with the herbs she had always taken to lessen the untenable burn of her heats.

He was all firm and lean against her back, all strong muscle and sinew, his body unconsciously shifting, curving to accommodate the weight of hers against it. Rey let her head roll back, bedding her head against his broad chest where she could hear his heart beating a staccato beneath her ear.

"Is this alright?" Ben murmured, his gruff voice further softened by the muffle of lips against skin. It was intoxicating, being so close to him. She could feel his body respond to hers. It was more than just the response of a man to a woman, but one of an alpha to his omega. It made Rey feel warm, made her glow, as though her skin had dissolved to embers, to know she had so effected him.

"Yes." she breathed, dark eyes gone flinty. It was all she could say, all she was capable of saying, for the pads of Ben's rough fingers at the juncture of her neck seemed to have wiped her mind suddenly clean. “Yes.”

It was Ben, of course it was Ben. She had known from the moment he had stepped foot into the forest clearing, from the moment he had hauled her aboard his carriage. She had known him all along.

She could feel him, feel the way his body carved through the cold air with grace she never knew a man so large could possess, the way his footfalls struck the earth with such purpose it seemed to shake the loam beneath her feet as he made his way toward her. She knew him in smell, in the way the air had shifted as he came near, an arching aura of light and scent that thrummed around his body like a mandorla, shimmering and crackling like lightning arcing through wet earth.

"Have you finished trying to escape me?" he murmured. His voice was so hoarse, so deep it felt as though she were floating in a dark channel, in a sea she could so easily drown in.

His fingers curled through her unbound hair, combing through her dark locks and groaning deeply as the scent of her perfume dissipated in the air. He gathered the fabric of her shift into a balled fist, hand trembling with the effort it took not to tear the fabric from her body and bare her to him. She let her hand fall over his fist, feeling the rough scars that marked his skin like the beauty marks that spread across his face like constellations.

His eyes were so dark a brown they were nearly black, staring into her face as though attempting to memorise every inch of her, mapping her features as though he were a traveller exploring uncharted terrain.

"You knew." said Rey. It wasn't a question, for they both already knew the answer.

She could feel the tension in his arms as each muscle tightened, corded and heavy against her like ropes of braided steel. "Not at first." he said, brushing wet hair from his face. He was nearly panting, nearly breathless. She could see the uneven heave of his chest, the way he seemed as effected by her as she was by him.

He continued, "At least, not...Not at first. But then your heat came. I could—”

Smell it. Smell you. He stopped short of saying the words but Rey heard them anyway.

She had seen the wildfire in his eyes. Had felt the spike of near excruciating warmth that had lifted the hair on the back of her neck when his scent had rent the air when he had come near. Even the dichotomizing scar she had given him had seemed to react to her presence, calling to her, luring her close— as though begging her to run her fingers across it, to once again bless the marred, jagged flesh she had created with her touch. She had known, of course she had. She had always known.

Rey turned her face up toward his, feeling the sudden desire to lick her lips, and a burst of tenderness unfurled in his chest at the sight of her doe-wide eyes. His long fingers spread over her belly and pulled her flat against him, leaving so little space between them that not even a breeze could pass through. Words seemed to fail her now. Words seemed not to exist to her now.

Rey wondered when time had begun to slow, if it was just for the two of them. She could feel the intensity of his gaze, the way his edacious eyes roamed over her making her flush, as though her heat was not currently burning its way through her, as though her mind was not currently conjuring up visions of naked flesh and starving kisses.

In the distance he could hear a howl, loud as the bay of a wolf at first light of the moon, and Rey flinched at the sound, as though she had been so engulfed by him that she had forgotten the true purpose of their meeting that night. Ben's pride swelled at that, though it made the alpha inside him bristle aggressively at the idea that another alpha remained so near his omega.

His eyes swept over the slope of her collarbones, the delicate jut of bone against skin, and she watched with half-lidded eyes as his tongue run out across his bottom lip. She lifted a hand to his face, fingers running over the scar that had come so close to blinding him, as though wishing she could heal the marks with just her touch.

"Gods, Rey..." Ben breathed.

His body caged her against one of the trees spread sparsely through the clearing, catching her between his arms and pinning her with his intense gaze, holding her between the harsh trunk and the firmness of his body.

His voice was gravelly and rough, frayed around the edges by the same hunger that threatened to overtake her, so that she could hear the dark undercurrent that flooded his voice and showed he felt the same hunger that she was currently at battle with.

His cream-coloured tunic stuck to his skin with sweat and the mist of rain, outlining every defined muscle that flexed toward her, every firm plain that her fingertips felt suddenly hot at the idea of touching. Rey wanted to outline every curve of him with teeth and tongue and lips, to lay claim to him past body and into soul, to draw her teeth across his chest and into his beating heart.

She closed the space between them, knowing that every moment she had spent without his lips on hers was an utter waste, and she claimed his lips, urgent, ravenous, greedy. She was overcome with gratification as she felt Ben's mouth consign to hers at once, responding with an urgency and want that rivaled her own, as though he had been kissing her ever since Takodana and she had been fool enough to keep him waiting.

His mouth slanted against hers, callused palms sliding down her arms so that he could pull her against him, both his mouth and his body fitting so perfectly against hers that it seemed as though it had been crafted by the Gods for that very purpose.

She could feel licks of flame catching just beneath her skin, like sparks erupting from the end of a flint. Sweat beaded at her brow like crystals, the hair that stuck at the back of her neck feeling suddenly stifling beneath the collar of her rail. She wondered how her shift isn’t soaked with sweat, soaked with slick, soaked with rain, wondered how he hadn’t pulled his eyes from hers, to gaze at the the thin rail that must surely now be translucent.

They kissed as if there was nothing else in the world that need be thought of, as if all their years of hating and fighting and falling in love had built toward this very moment, when all they had to do was take it.

It was a kiss that was everything all at once. Every emotion that pounds through her, every hyper-sensitive feeling brought on by the burgeoning heat between her legs, every thought he hoped to convey with touch instead of words.

A completeness settled over him, inflating his chest, pulling at his insides like warm knouts of flame. It was desire, it was anger, it was years of tireless frustration and unending ardour, it was desperation, it was pure lust and unalloyed hunger. It was things he didn’t know the names for, things he hadn’t ever felt, hadn’t even known to exist before that moment, before her.

He was in a world beyond worlds, beyond loneliness, beyond desire for even the shallowest touch or meekest tenderness, beyond even the desire that had plagued him since his days as the lonely Prince of Alderaan: the desire for love.

It was a bruising kiss, searing hot, bibulous, as though Ben was trying to suck down every breath she had, until she had no breath left at all, until she was drunk on his touch and his scent and every saccharine word that spilled from his lips like warm honey.

There was a sudden warmth, a sudden indescribably completeness, that unfurled in the centre of his chest like a flower blooming in spring sunlight, so unyieldingly firm that Ben wondered if he were suddenly sinking from the weight of it.

His hands cradled her face as though she was something he was afraid to break, something precious, and he tilted her face back gently so he could deepen the kiss, letting her body sag against his as though all her strength and all her energy was being diverted to the lips she slotted against his.

His tongue slid across her lower lip and Rey did not hesitate to open up for him, to open up to him, so that they could set about claiming each other with teeth and tongues and warm, ragged breath, until she was trembling in his arms, leaning into him so completely that it seemed as though she were some twisting vine and he a tree that had bowed to her intrusion.

His touch was wild, animal, raw, the way his dark eyes swept over her leaning no confusion as to why he was known as the Wolf of Alderaan from Chandrila to Jakku.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you again for reading, sorry for the glitch! unfortunately it just be like that sometimes


	4. the desire of wolves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Alpha...." she said, her voice muffled by the fingers he couldn't seem to pull away from her mouth._
> 
> _He could feel spit slide down his finger as she spoke, her mouth so warm and wet that it took every ounce of restraint for him to not fish his cock out of his breeches and test its depth by other means. "Alpha please." Rey said, and the words smudged in the air like sage._

> ❝ The wolves in the woods have sharp teeth and long claws,  
but it's the wolf inside who will tear you apart. ❞
> 
> ― Jennifer Donnelly, Stepsister

**IV**

Pyrexic heat unfolded between them, disturbed neither by wind nor rain nor the uniquely alpha howls that sifted through the trees like whispers. Ben was almost surprised at the sound, the intrusion, for the start of the mating ceremony felt long ago, as thought it had been days ago when he had first broken through the trees, quick and lithe and _hungry_. 

Stifling heat rose from beneath Rey's collar, the sweat that polished the skin above her brow so mouthwateringly sweet that Ben ached to catch each droplet with his tongue and savour the taste. His fingers were quick, almost clumsy with the desperation that pumped palpably through him, as they worked at the laces clasped between her breasts, the gland that bloomed at the side of her neck beginning to pulse in time with the staccato of her heart and the throbbing between her legs. 

They held each other closer, bodies curved against each other, melded together. Alpha and omega become one, so that the heat of _her _body and the heat of _his_ body soon became the heat of _their_ bodies, and suddenly it felt as though the frigid rain that fell around them was not cold enough, as though the the icy fog that slid down from Alderaan’s massive mountains was not strong enough. 

They were fire incarnate, grasping and reaching and razing, burning through their surroundings until only they remained, until they were so engulfed in heat and darkness that there was no longer any need to try and mask it, to try to contain it, to act as though every nerve in their bodies had not been suddenly set alight and electrified with anticipation and excitement. 

"Rey..." he breathed against the shell of her ear, and the heat in his voice was new and dark with promise. The word, one she had heard a thousand times before, sent a frisson of exhilaration through her, the silken smallclothes swathing her hips shifting as her thighs clasped together, seeking friction. 

The words came out like rolling thunder, gruff and gritty, and so arousing that she could feel her legs begin to shake. "_Omega_." 

The friction of her body against his caused her shift to rise higher up her tanned thighs, Ben relishing in the feel of her soft skin as his fingers curved across her strong legs. He could feel the way her trembling fingers pulled at the bodice of her shift until the rich fabric unspooled in her hands, sliding down her arms to hook at each of her thin wrists and billow in the cold breeze like a specter’s robes. 

The fabric ballooned to the ground, useless as a fur cloak in Jakku, and Rey stood before him in only her silken smallclothes, the woven fabric slung so low on her hips, that he could see her properly, bold and bare and beautiful. 

He watched her, stunned by her beauty, wishing there would ever be a way to capture the magnificence of his omega, the lustre of her dark curls, the depth of her leonine eyes, the softness of each parted lip. His eyes swept across her, drinking in every inch of her, the slope of her neck and the divot of her collarbones, the roundness of each breast, wishing he could memorise the exact shade of each nipple, pebbled in the cold air despite the hot blood that pounded through her veins and the hot breath that escaped his lips as he bent to nose at the cavern between each breast.

Rey tipped her head back as the pleasure that thrummed through her increased to a steady vibration as his rough thumbs stroked across her nipples, Ben capturing each shuddering breath she offered as he kissed her, long and deep and devouring. Tasting her, taking his time to lavish in her, to pull her against him and swallow every moan she offered. 

Ben held her firm against him, dipping his head to press his cheek to the basin of her collarbones, so blinded by desire that he was unable to resist the call of the alpha within, who begged to touch her, to taste her, to claim her. She could feel the hardness fighting against the laces of his breeches as the buttons marching down the chest of his doublet were, the omega inside her preening at the knowledge that _she_ had done that. 

He was hungry in a way that flooded every bone in his body, desperate for her in a way only starving men could understand. Desperate to touch her, to pleasure her, to explore her, to learn every detail about her body and her mind and her soul, and memorise it all. 

His uncinate nose dragged languidly along the graceful curve of her neck, his eyes fluttering as he nosed at her gland, so blinded by the purity of her scent that for a moment sight was too overwhelming to bear. She smelled of calendula and ylang-ylang, of bushels of sweet flowered jasmine and pods of cinnamon being broken apart for baking, of spiced wine from the coffers of Bespin and sugar just on the fringes of burning, of the gulps of fresh sea air he had taken such pleasure in as a child at his grandmother's Naboo court. 

His chest was fit to burst from the rearing of the alpha within, who thrashed and roared loud as the crack of a whip, demanding that he _touch_ her, _taste_ her, _claim_ her. 

Blood rushed passed his ears like waves breaking against sand, and before Ben could even utter a word of warning his head had bowed to her neck, his tongue laving languidly across her skin before pressing flush to the warm gland sheltered at the side of her throat. 

Sweetness flooded his pallet, coating his tongue and sliding down his throat like a fine fire spiced ale. It was good, so intoxicatingly, unbearably _good_, that he couldn't help but latch down on the curve of her neck and taste and taste and taste— until he was openly sucking at her gland as though it was the only thing tethering him to this earth. 

Her scent seeped into his blood, consuming him like flame eating away at dry brush, and Rey throbbed with need, all teeth and tongue and gasping breaths, keening softly as Rey leaned against him, allowing her alpha to slake his thirst. The effect of her scent was so powerful that Ben could feel an enervating calmness roll through him, a ball of sedate warmth curling and overlapping and unfurling in his chest, flaring through bone and muscle and fiber until he could feel the way his breathing leveled out, the way his heaving chest began to slow.

There was a howl in the distance but he didn't care. He would kill any man who dared touch her, dared look at her. 

Ben inhaled heavily, overjoyed to be finally drinking directly from the source instead of scenting her through cloth and space and distance. The prospect of no longer being an unmated alpha thrilled him, his enthusiasm showing in the way his hand carded gently through her unbound hair, cradling her head in his big palms. His free hand slid across the soft plains of her naked back, bare skin on bare skin, so he could feel the heat of her skin beneath his fingers like freshly forged steel. 

Her fingers trembled as they worked the laces of his tunic, pulling roughly until they gave way beneath her fingers, and he could have chuckled at her enthusiasm had he not been so occupied with pulling the tunic over his head, removing the final obstacle that stood between them. 

Rey looked at him so intensely he couldn't help but shiver, despite the heat that churned through him. Her eyes raked over him, vulturine, sweeping over the firm plains of his chest, the corded iron of muscle and sinew, the ridges that marked his belly like a set of hills she wanted to traverse.

Ben took pride in her reaction, watching the way her tongue dragged across her bottom lip as her eyes roamed over him. Arousal shone in her eyes like shards of onyx, blown wide with lust as she studied him unflinchingly, the attraction she felt written plain in her face, her lips parted in a little moan of pleasure. He could see the way she looked at him, the way she desired him, his scent, his alpha blood, his overwhelming _largeness_, the thing that had made him skittish as a child and fearsome as a man, as she admired the body he had spent so many years working, honing, for his omega. _For her_. 

Her eyes lowered to the scar that cleaved across his chest. Ben shivered as the pads of her thumb glided over the scarred skin, her fingers mapping a jagged road across the skin of his chest and neck and over the strong ridge of his eye. 

Her scent shifted, bittering, no longer the velveteen softness he wanted to bathe in, as fear and sadness flooded her. Instantly the alpha that Ben had pushed back behind the cage of his chest reared its head, launching into action, begging to protect omega, to help omega, to please omega. 

He caught her hand and kissed each one of her fingers, biting gently into the meat of her thumb to bring her attention back to him. Rey met his even gaze and waded into the depth of his eyes, the blackness that engulfed them so impossibly deep that they seemed to contain volumes, and Ben reeled in surprise when he bent to claim her lips and found her dancing away. 

She lilted up on her toes and kissed him softly, heat blooming out from the spot where her lips pressed to his bare skin. 

Even his skin tasted good, cool against the heat that sparked on the back of her tongue like spice. Ben found himself bending to accommodate her, to allow she continue to besot his face with kisses, her lips journeying across the slope of his scarred cheek down to his strong chin, the line of his chiseled jaw, the deific column of his neck and along the remainder of the scars angular curve. 

He made a hollow noise, low and grumbled at the back of his throat like the gnarl of an animal, the way she whispered his name against the shell of his ear causing all the blood in his body to rush to his throbbing cock.

Rey claimed his lips again, accepting each hungry kiss he offered until she felt breathless, dizzied, starved, moans rising and meeting until they were gasping. Ben sucked down each of the little, pleasured whines she offered, the way his body responded to hers almost astounded him— for though he had endured many heats over the years, none had ever had such an effect on him, had ever made him feel this way. 

His hands splayed across her back as he held her to him, one pressed to the divot between her shoulders and the other sliding down her lower back, warm as steel plate in summer sun and so big that it seemed to spread across the span of her waist and swallow her whole. 

_Mine_, Ben thought, holding her tight. He felt dizzy, felt on fire, felt as though a skin of icy water had been dumped over his head. _This is mine_. 

Her small thighs had moved to sandwich one of his larger ones between them, leaving the weight of her body braced almost completely against him. Her lips parted to allow his tongue to slide across hers, tasting the sweetness of her lips, of her mouth, of each tender touch she offered. 

He could feel his heart hammering so loudly in his chest that he wondered if she could hear it too, if she could feel it too, if she knew that it beat just for her. 

"Alpha..." Rey murmured, breathless. 

Her lips were puffy from the fierceness of his kisses, a shade of red so pretty Ben could not help but kiss her deeper, licking into her mouth, nipping at her bottom lip, and despite the tightness with which Rey clasped her thighs he could still smell her heat, smell her skin, smell the slick that could never be masked, even the strongest or most potent of perfumes. 

"What is it, sweeting?" he breathed, the deep timbre of his voice betrayed by the growling whine emitted at the tail end of his question.

There was wine on her tongue but he was already drunk on her touch, her kiss, the way her fingers climbed his arms and grasped hungrily at the firm muscle that flexed there, and no amount of wine could have been more intoxicating.

He cradled her head in his big palms, thumbs running tenderly across the declivity of her cheek, over her lips, feeling his fingers push passed her soft lips and into the cavern of her warm mouth. They moaned in unison, Ben's eyes flashing with something dangerous as he watched her lips close around his thick fingers, taking him so deep into her mouth that his cock could not help but respond. 

Her skin shone like silk in the silver-gold moonlight, the sweat that polished her brow nearly glimmering in the semi-darkness. "Alpha I...."she said, her voice muffled by the fingers he couldn't seem to pull away from her mouth. 

He could feel spit slide down his finger as she spoke, her mouth so warm and wet that it took every ounce of restraint for him to not fish his cock out of his breeches and test its depth by other means. "Alpha _please_." Rey said, and the words smudged in the air like sage.

Her voice was high and breathy, punctured by breathless moans that lilted each time she grinded herself down against the thigh wedged between her own. A glimmer of hot pain shot through him and he groaned, knowing at once from the unfamiliarity of the pain that it was his body's response to an unknotted omega in heat being so close. 

He pressed his hand to the space between her hips, long fingers spreading across her belly in an attempt to soothe the pain that roiled within, the pressure of his palm and the movement of his leg working to sooth the pain for the moment. 

Ben buried his face in the curve between her neck and naked shoulder, inhaling her scent— all perfume and spice and sweetness. 

"I've got you, Rey." he promised. His voice was gravel, ice and stone, roiling over her like the stormy thunder that grumbled in the distance of the mountains, and it made her shiver, made her ache, made slick run down her trembling thighs. "I've got you, omega. _My_ omega." 

His voice was so rich, so heady with desire and hunger and assurance, so thick with the promise of protection, that not only was the omega that struggled inside of her soothed— but the woman outside of her, all trembling legs and churning belly and wide, lusting eyes, was too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you've probably noticed i upped the chapters! i might up it again but i ~think~ one more chapter might be enough. I guess we'll see!


	5. starved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Rey spread her legs wider for him and he growled, an apodeictic heat present in the way his hands smoothed over her waist, an undeniable urgency to how he spread his fingers along the backs of her bare hips and pulled her close enough to bed his head against her belly. The way his eyes swept over her was animalistic, barbarous, appraising her in a way that sent a wicked thrill of pleasure surging through her, a feeling of virtuous power flooding her at the idea that she had brought this man, this alpha, this prince, to his knees."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is literally six thousand words of porn. i need help. i need an exorcism.

> “I love with my throat exposed”
> 
> — Natalie Sharp, _Molar Concentration_

**Part V**

_"I've got you, omega. My omega."_

Rey allowed herself a moment to luxuriate in the words after they were uttered by the massive man before her, the unflinching certainty and aplomb that had been present in his deep voice making her lips tremble, her knees nearly giving out beneath her at the look in his dark eyes as he spoke.

She had spent so many years on her own in the barren wastelands of Jakku, working her callused fingers bloody to find enough salvage to trade for food that day, trudging through the sand each night to return to an empty home where her only company were her daydreams and the whip of cold desert wind. She had been utterly and completely alone, dreaming about the day her parents would come for her— when _someone_ would come for her, to tell her they loved her, that they cared for her.

After so many years of unending isolation and loneliness, it was almost overwhelming to be in Ben's presence now. To see him standing before her, pledging his care, his protection, his affection, for the rest of her life, promising that he would carry her not only through this heat, but, from the unwavering sincerity in his soft eyes and the firmness with which he spoke, through all the heats to come.

Pleasure unfurled in the cavern of her chest at his words, filling and filling and filling until it overflowed. Rey's body flooded with affection, the pleasure brought on by his praise palpable in every charged moment that passed between them, every milimetre of distance between their bodies, every breath sharply exhaled from her heaving chest.

He _claimed_ her, he _wanted_ her— and just the thought of not spending the rest of her days alone made Rey feel as though she might burst from the warmth that spread through her chest and belly.

She preened under his attentions, captured in the cage of his strong arms as he planted them on either side of her, backing her against a tall oak tree that seemed to be trembling just as much as she. His eyes were black as the obsidian curls shining in the silver moonlight that bathed them, gazing over her as she stood before him, concealed only by the soft flush that coloured her cheeks and began to arc down her slim throat. 

He moved slow, deliberate, closing what little space lay between them, bowing his head to catch her earlobe between his front teeth and tug gently. She moaned, feeling his warm breath fan out across her neck, sharp teeth dragging down the arc of her jaw beside her ear, teeth marking her skin in a way her omega craved would stay forever.

Rey watched the rain fall down his face as it sprayed down from above, water arcing down his scarred cheek and over the corner of his soft lips and she could not help but lean forward to catch the water that fell from his skin like teardrop diamonds. His skin tasted like warmth and rain and sweet, southern spices, like all the comfort of a home she had so long ached for, like darkness and hunger and barely restrained desire. Like _Ben— _and Rey couldn't get enough.

Her lips pulled a soft bruise to the surface of his skin beneath the flushed gland on his neck, his moan reverberating through her as though it had been uttered flush just against the shell of her ear, and he tilted his head so that she could continue, could follow the line of his jaw, could lower her mouth to his throat and plant a hundred kisses there.

Ben groaned, more animal than man, hands clenched at his sides to keep from reaching for her. His hips jerked, twitching forward to grind against her belly, hungry, rabid, near feral with want, unable to resist the unbridled longing that coursed through him, thicker and faster and more potent than his alpha blood. Anxiety thrummed in his chest like the impetuous beat of a hummingbird's wings, a silent battle raging between alpha and Ben as the beast urged to _protect_ and _fuck_ and _claim._

“Alpha...” she breathed, her voice clouded and far away.

He could smell the heat on her skin, could see the way a flush curled down her neck as it heated her, the hand not curled around his shoulder clutching weakly at her aching belly. The alpha within him reared, furious that Ben wasn't sating his omega's heat, wasn't keeping her safe and protected from this pain.

She wound her hands around the back of his neck and pulled him down towards her knowingly, rising up on her toes and urging his face down into the curved bend of her neck and shoulder.

He followed her lead, bending his head to nose at her gland, letting the tip of his aquiline nose drag along her neck as he breathed long and deep. He could feel himself ease almost at once, the scent of his omega causing a sedate, syrupy calm to twist through him like smoke from an extinguished wick_._

She bent to nose at his gland, curling against him like a kitten as she scented him. Ben was happy to relinquish control for the moment as Rey sought out a proper taste of him, the bold omega grasping hungrily at his chest as her teeth grazed his gland, aching to savor the headiness of his skin, to swallow down his scent until she could memorize it, until it became part of hers.

A growl rolled through his chest like thunder, the way her tongue ran over his gland setting his teeth on edge, setting him on fire— so that he soon began to tremble with barely contained want, the hands that had fallen over her hips tightening until they were locked around her, holding her against him, rutting gently against her smooth belly. 

Ben was too far gone to bother with cockiness at the desperate whine that pulled up from the back of her throat as he pulled away from her. He grabbed the cloak he had been pulled free from its clasps around his shoulders and tossed the thick sheepskin mantle down at their feet until it blanketed the wet earth, and he sank to his knees before her, his umber eyes hooded and blown impossibly wide, the brown long ago swallowed by darkened lust.

Rey spread her legs wider for him and he growled, an apodeictic heat present in the way his hands smoothed over her waist, an undeniable urgency to how he spread his fingers along the backs of her bare hips and pulled her close enough to bed his head against her belly. The way his eyes swept over her was animalistic, barbarous, appraising her in a way that sent a wicked thrill of pleasure surging through her, a feeling of virtuous power flooding her at the idea that she had brought this _man_, this _alpha_, this _prince_, to his knees.

His palms were big and strong and warm against her naked skin, rough with the telltale calluses that told of his familiarity with a sword, and it sent shockwaves of pleasure-pain through her belly and down between her legs, her mind flooding with wonder as she imagined what his fingers would feel like on her arse, on her lips, on her cunt.

"Please, alpha." Rey breathed, her voice weak enough to be blown away by the wind. She could barely think, barely breathe, without his hands on her. She felt hunger like she had never felt before, desperate for his touch in any way, in _every_ way, that it felt like she might actually die without it, without him.

"Come." said the Prince of Alderaan, and before Ben had even a moment to prepare she was upon him, crashing down into his body and sending them both tumbling to the forest floor, all grasping limbs and hungry mouths and cold, wet earth.

But he doesn't care about the cold or the rain or the dirt or anything at all, not with her in his arms, her lips besotting his face and neck with hungry, open-mouthed kisses, her eyes leaking big, fat tears that he hurries to kiss away before finally finally finally returning to her mouth.

Rey wriggled under his firm weight, made to roll on her belly and lift herself up on her hands and knees, but Ben stopped her with a hand on the back of her neck, pulling her back up toward him. "I would look upon you, omega." He growled, the rasp in his voice making her quiver, making slick run down the insides of her thighs.

Rey opened her mouth to speak, but the words gave way to a moan as he ran the flat of his burning tongue along the ridge if her gland, sucking greedily so that she could feel a jolt of tingling pleasure ripple through her from head to foot. She could only nod, taking the brunt of his weight down atop of her small frame with impressive resolve. His broad chest and muscled belly pressed flush against hers, the slide of skin on skin making her mouth water as the smell of arousal flowered in the air like fresh spring blossoms.

He bedded his head against the cavern of her breasts, his kiss swollen lips moving over each of her pert nipples as his hands roamed her body, smoothing down over her rounded hips, her shapely thighs, each of her lean, athletic legs.

She gasped as his lips closed around her nipple, her chest jutting unconsciously upward to seek further contact as his tongue swirled across the pert pink flesh, and the alpha was more than happy to oblige her silent request, mouth widening to pull her small breast into his mouth.

Ben wanted to memorise every inch of her, each of the sun spots that stood as a testament to her time in Jakku, each healed over scar from her years scavenging in the deserts, each one of the freckles that spattered over her skin like constellations in the night sky above.

His mouth followed the smooth plaines of her chest and down to her taut stomach, brushing light kisses across her sweet skin and nosing playfully at the thatch of hair between her legs. He could smell her sweat, her skin, her slick, pressing warm kisses across the divot of her waist, the rounded bones of her hips, the curve of her navel.

Rey trembled as he touched his lips to each extended hipbone, thinking that when she became his queen he would feed her ever delicacy, every treat, until the bones no longer protruded. Next came her thighs, twin curves of golden skin and sparse sunspots, tenderly caressed by soft, warm kisses as he made his way toward her inner thighs, the allure of tasting her too sweet to ignore.

He nosed at the thatch of fine hair between her thighs, so agonisingly close to her warm centre that it was all Ben could do not to bury his face between her legs and sup on her sweet, wet cunt until the silent Alderaanian forest came alive with the sound of his name as she screamed it.

“Please alpha!” she whined, high and hungry. Her eyes were blown wide and dark with lust and desperation, her parted lips seeking out the gland on his neck as though magically drawn there by the gods. She found she could barely speak, could barely think, so overcome with want for her alpha that she could think of nothing else. "I need— I _need_ you."

He was so hard he could feel himself leaking, the way his cock pushed at the leather laces of his breeches tipping over the canal from discomfort into pain— and it was as though Rey could read his mind, for soon her fingers had migrated to his laces, hurriedly pushing his breeches down over his bare hips so that they pooled loosely around his thick thighs.

Rey pushed herself up on her elbows to shuck the breeches further down his legs, desperate to feel bare skin on bare skin, until nothing stood between them but words and wind. Her eyes caught on his cock, finally freed from its woolen prison and standing at attention between well muscled thighs, and her eyes glazed, so bright and edacious.

The Prince of Alderaan kneeled between her legs, the words she had opened her mouth to say suddenly giving way to a rapturous moan as he manoeuvred her legs around his hips and pressed his weight down into her.

His hands pressed down on either side of her head as he braced himself above her, caging her in in a way that she had never before thought she would enjoy. Her eyes followed the corded lengths of muscle that rippled across his forearms and chest as he held himself above her, bending at the elbow to nuzzle his nose against hers, playful even now— when his cock was hard as beskar steel and the rut she had triggered was half blinding him.

He lowered a hand between her legs, a dual gasp filling the air as both found the wetness that had gathered there, sweet and alluring as the pool just out of Tantalus' reach. Rey’s hips bucked at his touch, sparks popping just behind the eyes she screwed shut, overcome by the way his rough fingertips grazed over her folds. She gasped in pleasure and surprise and reached for him, carding her fingers through his dark hair, her fingers pulling just hard enough to make him grit out a low, animalistic growl.

His palm worked at the cock that hung thick and heavy between his legs. The sight made Rey’s mouth water, the slick that baptized her thighs growing as she saw the knot at the base of his cock had already begun to swell beneath his rough palm.

Rey met his gaze, dark eyes as desperate as his, as hungry. Ben's hips settle into the cradle of hers as he shifted his weight to rest over her, guiding his cock between the lithe legs that shone with slick and the marks of each warm, open-mouthed kiss he had laid there. Voices rise and meet and break apart in the cold air, moans of pleasure, of ravenous hunger, of relief, his cock slowly slotting into her as though it was made for her.

But then again, she supposed, _it was_.

She felt so good around him that the alpha could barely breathe, knowing then what he had known since the moment he had come upon her in the clearing, that he wouldn’t be able to last. Not when she gripped him like that, her cunt pulsing around his cock as she writhed and moaned, blunted nails digging into flesh as her arms tightened around his wide shoulders, hips lifting off grass as she silently encouraged he press more deeply into her.

It was a stretch her body had never experienced, a completeness that she had never felt, and as she turned her gaze up to look up at him, it was to find the same relief reflected in his dark eyes.

For all his scent had intoxicated her his cock was only better, so that soon her eyes were rolling back into her head, a half scream pulling from her lips and dissipating in the forest air like fog as his cock sheathed fully into her. The sound seemed to reverberate through the trees like echo against stone, the most erotic music he had ever heard.

Rey tasted so sweet he couldn't resist stealing another searing kiss. He leaning down to ravish her lips with his own, to taste her, to swallow the moans she offered and let his tongue move against hers until she was so breathless and he so lightheaded that there was no choice but to pull away.

He rolled his hips up against hers, knocking the breath from her lungs as he bedded his face against her neck, nosing at her gland and catching the sweat that beaded at the hollow of her throat with harried, hungry kisses.

Her body, intuitive, clever, programmed by nature to read the signals of his body, moved against his as an omega never had, for even though he had lain with other maidens no one had ever been able to read the tightness of his belly, the trembling of his thighs, the clench and pull of the muscles in his back, so that she seemed to know just where to touch him, tease him, taste him.

No one had ever seemed to be able to read him, to know him. _But she did._

She always had. From the first time he had seen her in the forest all those years ago, standing opposite him, her fingers trembling as she launched arrows at his shoulders, his back. From the first time she had narrowed her eyes and spat at his feet, calling him names, calling him a monster, glaring at him as though he had struck her. She had seen his future, his present, his past, and she loved him anyway.

He could feel it in the way Rey touched him, caressed him, gentle and sweet— even now, when her heat burned through her so hot that if asked she might not even remember her name. Her long fingers combed through his rain soaked hair, brushing it back from his brow so it ceased to bother, as though somehow she had sensed his discomfort.

Her legs knotted around his hips, his head dropping down to her neck as though drawn there by a force unseen, and he can't resist drawing his lips across the flesh, feeling her gland pulse beneath his tongue. The swollen flesh was already sensitive from from the induced heat, mottled now after being gifted with so many beloved kisses.

"Next time I'll taste you. I'll make you come on my tongue." he moaned. "You taste so _good_."

The scent was intoxicating, the alpha within rearing at the way it appealed to him, called to him, begged that he claim her and take her scent into his own so that it would mark him forever. It was like summer rain on fresh trimmed grass, smokey autumn wind and cold spring water, like the fresh flowers his grandfathered had always gathered in the drawing room of the palace for his grandmother after each bloom.

"Sweet girl. Sweet omega." He breathed, lapping at her throat, her head turning away from him to offer better access to the nose that brushed against the underside of her jaw. "You're mine, aren't you? I'm gonna make you mine. Would you like that?"

She let out a guttural moan as he head of his cock struck something within her that made her back arch like a drawn bow. "I am." Rey promised, and it was only after she cried his name several more times that he realised she was no longer calling him Ben. "I already am."

Ben looked a tenuous mix of wrecked and beautiful, the moonlight that dripped down from above illuminating the shadows of his skin, emphasizing the muscle that flexed beneath his pale skin like waves over still water. Her blunted nails left long red scratches down his back and he hoped they left marks, hoped he could see them in the morning, hoped they scarred and he could look over his shoulder at them for the rest of his days.

"I know, love." he promised, affection and lust colouring his words like the redness that filled his cheeks. She could feel the way his thighs flexed with the force of the pleasure. "You're being so good for me. Such a good omega. Perfect." He could feel the way her cunt clenched around him at that, making him gasp out a curse, eyelids fluttering. "I'll take care of you, Rey. I promise. I always take care of whats mine."

She moaned loud as a crack of thunder, the forest once more coming alive with the sound of an omega in rapture, the sounds that proved the hunt was once more a success, as it had been when he was a child all those years ago.

He pressed a hand down on her belly so that he could feel the way his cock drove in and out of her. Sparks formed and burst and fizzled behind her eyes, her mind pressed so full of _alpha_ and _knot_ and _yours_ that every other thought seemed to slip right away and before she could even speak.

Her hips jerk upwards as her peak washed over her, and in the throes of pleasure her cunt had gone were tight as a closed fist around his cock, her body quivering through the aftershocks of such overcoming pleasure, and he tipped her hips back and pushed them down to be able to keep her from jumping off the ground, the large hand he spread over her hips making her seem so small beneath him, so fragile.

The sounds of her moan screamed across the quiet clearing like a stone skimming across still water and it had the alpha grinning as his ego inflated, hoping in the back of his mind that they could all hear the writhing omega, that all of Alderaan knew she was his.

He was so close to his climax that he could practically taste the pleasure on his tongue, especially at the way her tongue had chosen to move teasingly over his gland, her mouths half muffled by the way she buried her face between his neck and shoulder.

Ben could feel her her lips parting at the side of his neck, where they had taken to sucking at the puffy skin of his gland, and the alpha knows at once what was happening, knows that the overstimulation of pleasure in heat has flooded her mind with the need to take him as he's taking her, to claim him as her alpha forever.

“No.” He managed at the last second, the rhythms of his hips stuttering.

Rey pulled away. For a moment she looked as though he had reeled back and struck her suddenly, the look of shock and hurt that crossed her face making his heart sink into the pit of his belly, the alpha in his chest roaring in rage.

“Omega—“ he called, letting his alpha influence seep into his voice, and caught her hands as she made to pull away. His cock throbbed, screaming that he move, that he come inside of his omega, but the hurt on her face had gutted him.

“I want to do it right." he said, the set to her dark brows shifting as she listened. "I want you to be my mate, my empress. I want you at my side, to rule Alderaan with me, to be my mate for as long as we both walk this earth. It has to...” He swallowed hard, hoping that the earnestness he felt showed on his face. “When I claim you it has to be part of the ceremony to make it official. It’s the tradition of the royal family. My mother and my grandmother and my great-grandmother...I want you to be mine, the proper way."

Her hands slid over his broad shoulders as she dropped her legs from around his hips, a hand of ice gripping his heart as she pulled back. He knew his eyes were glassy, watching as she extricated herself from his grip and pulled away, but he said nothing. His cock twitched absently, the alpha within languishing in the last few moments of knowing the pure bliss of being inside her, knowing that he’d never again know the feeling of such a perfect fit.

It was her choice, though it broke his heart, to decide which alpha she wanted to be hers. 

Rey pressed her palms flat on his chest and pushed gently, urging him backward and Ben did as he was told, inching off her until he sat flat on the cloak — but to his surprise the omega in hid lap didn’t ease off of him as he had anticipated.

Instead her grip around his neck and shoulders only tightened as she moved, maneuvering herself in a way that kept his cock from slipping out of her, and in that moment both Ben and alpha were so relieved to still be in her favour that they were more than happy to let control.

"Alpha..." she breathed, so soft that he nearly missed it. She let her legs fall open on either side of his lap, stretched wide by the thickness of his thighs, and as she settled onto his lap his knot throbbed at the tightness of her cunt as they shifted.

Rey pushed at his shoulders until Ben eased down onto his back, his hands automatically lifting to her hips as she wobbled uncertainly, and he stroked the soft skin there with his fingers. He basked in the heat of her skin and the smile she shone down at him, her skin scorching hot to the touch— hotter still as he dipped his head to nuzzle against her breast, inhaling her scent as though it were the only thing tethering him to this earth. His Rey of light, bright as the sun and just as warm.

Her chest was flushed pink all the way down to her nipples, a perfect parallel to the sweet soft pink of her cheeks, and she hissed gently as he claimed one between his fingers, rolling the sensitive bud between his thumb and forefinger.

Rey nuzzled her cheek against his hair as he bedded his face against her breast, Ben watching through hooded eyes as she threw back her head and moaned in pleasure at the way he suckled at her breast. Her hips undulated urgently against his as she whined, high and needy, the sound of an omega in need drawing his attention back to her, between between her legs. He could see where his cock disappeared into her, and Ben, overcome at the sight, could only nod at her urgency, could only slide an arm around her waist and bring her back to him.

He pressed his open mouth to her gland and sucked with an exigence he had never felt before, the way Rey cried out, loud and bright and full of pleasure, making the patter of rain and the howl of wind seem like a whisper in comparison.

"You smell so good, omega." He groaned, cupping her breast in his palm and letting his thumb run over the pebbled ridge of her nipple. "You taste good, you _feel_ good. Gods, I've never felt anything so good."

She moaned at the praise, the sound half muffled by the way she buried her face into his shoulder, her teeth nipping just hard enough at his collarbones to mark the skin with a trail of pink bruises. He rolled his hips up into her, feeling his cock slide between her folds as she arched her back, her body so smooth and soft against his that it was all he could do not to knot in her right then and there.

His palm slid between them to press down on the bottom of her belly, making her choke out a gasp as they both felt the pressure of his cock driving in and out of her, hitting a spot within her that her fingers had never reached.

Ben stretched up to capture her lips, unable to resist kissing her again, to claim those kiss swollen lips and leet her tongue sweep across his mouth in a desperate search for a way to sate her hunger. He had seen her this way before, with her dark eyes wild with barely masked fire and her brow set and firm, an aura of unfettered passion surrounding her. He had thought her passionate then, when the cool blue-tinged steel of her sword had been pressed to his throat, its steel singing as it sliced through the flesh of his cheek and brow— but it was nothing compared to now.

She was so beautiful, wrapped up in his arms like that. Her small hands braced on his shoulders as she rode him like he were a prized stallion and she a practiced rider, her thighs gripping him so tight he couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to be locked between them. Her head was thrown back so that her dark hair could sweep over her bare back like braided strands of satin, falling through the fingers he combed gently through it, and her cheeks were alight with a pink flush that curled down her neck and over her bare chest as she moved against him in the throes of heat and longing and aphrodisia.

"You're so good, Rey. You feel so good omega. I could stay like this forever. Sweetheart, I could _live_ like this." Rey preened at the words, omega and woman both caught in the rapture of his praise.

He could feel his knot swelling almost to full size as she ground her hips down into his, bracing her palms on his firm chest so that she could widen her legs and take more of him. His palm is big enough to cover the entirety of her mound, slipping between her warm thighs to reach toward the part of her he had so long ached to touch, to taste, to know as carnally, as somatically, as he knew the rest of her. His callused fingers moved through her folds, coating themselves in her unabashed wetness, obeying her need as she silently rolled her hips into his palm.

"A-alpha..." she moaned, feeling sparks of white hot pleasure jump through her like a spark across the jagged stone of a flint, like embers of a roaring fire crackling into the night sky.

The forest air was thick with sticky heat. It was as though her blood had been set aflame, as though not even the chill of a torrential downpour could cool her properly. Rey couldn't think of anything but how he felt inside of her, her mind washed free of everything except the way his cock moved in and out of her, the way his fingers circled her crest as though he were reading her mind, as though he knew just how she had touched herself, to the thought of _him_, the thought of _this_.

“Come, sweet girl.” Ben cooed.

His hand moved between her legs with practiced ease, the corners of his mouths quirking as he thought that this was the first time he had been able to touch her like this, to make her moan like this. It would be the first of hundreds, of thousands— for if Ben had his way he'd never spend another not slotted between her thighs, not touching her, not making her come on his cock and on his fingers and on his tongue.

“Come on, little one.” he grated, his voice so deep that it made gooseflesh run down her arms. He was unable to tear his eyes from her, her body laid before him clad in nothing but the cool water that dangled from her fingertips and eyelashes and nipples like teardrop diamonds. “I want to feel you come on my cock, omega. I want to feel you come on my cock like I’ve been dreaming of since that first time I saw you.”

As though to punctuate his point he jerked his hips harder than ever, making a scream pull from her lips before she could mask it. His hips had changed their rhythm, his arm snaking around her back and crushing her to him.

“You feel so—“ Rey moaned. Her voice was broken, a mix of breathily high and comically low that would have made her laugh in any other scenario. 

Her muscles ached with the way they stretched as they never had before, with the way her back arched and her hips writhed and stuttered, with the way her core pulses, her body electric with the need for relief that only her alpha can give her. 

She felt so full, so unbelievably, undeniably, _unforgettably_ full, and despite knowing that she would feel the pain of his enthusiasm in the morrow Rey found she couldn't bring herself to care in the slightest. Not when his cock pulled tantalizingly out of her before slamming back in, not when his lips were at her gland and his hot tongue was running over the bare skin there.

“Don't be afraid." he began, teeth gritted as he watched his cock disappear into her, giving another deep thrust that hit hard enough to make him choke as he attempted to speak. “I feel it too.”

Rey stifled another loud scream, breathing shakily, the way his nostrils flared making her wonder what she smelled like now, if she smelled like an omega well pleased. His dark eyes reflected the images of a thousand words that swam tirelessly through them, all the words he wanted to say but found he couldn’t, all the words that had been pushed aside to make way for the moans and sighs that filled the air around them.

“Are you ready for me?” he asked, his thick fingers circling over the nerves at the crest of her folds. The rain fell hard over his back like a hundred dulled pinpricks, the way her nails dug into his bare shoulders making his hips shake. "Are you ready for my knot, omega?"

“Yes alpha.” she keened. Her skin felt tight, itchy, her cheeks so hot they could melt butter as well as warm bread. She arched her back, her chest pushed out toward awaiting lips and Ben was only too pleased to graze each breast with his teeth, nipping just hard enough to tip over from pain into pleasure. “I want _all_ of you, Ben.”

The words make him utter an almost helpless moan, a deep, rumbling purr that's born at the base of his chest and reverberates through his body like a live wife, making her cunt clench around him.

Rey could feel the familiar pleasure of her peak begin to run its course through her body, a liquid heat that tickled at her spine and surged into her belly. She was filled with an almost blinding pleasure as he nosed at her neck, his tongue lapping at her gland while somehow still managing to whisper utterly filthy things against the shell of her ear, both his words and the low, thunderous tremble at which he spoke them doing wonders to increase her pleasure.

"You have no idea how long I've wanted this." he grunted, crowding up into her space. He was so close to his climax that he could practically taste the relief on his tongue, the way his knot throbbed and tightened as foreign to him as it was to the omega that squirmed beneath him. "You're doing so good, omega. You're perfect, so perfect for me."

"Please, alpha." she begged, crying out in both pleasure and agony. "Please give me your knot. Alpha, please."

The hand not wrapped around his shoulder rose to his face, her soft fingertips moving over the line of his jaw, the curve of his cheeks, the pad of his lips, watching him through half-lidded eyes, her lust-darkened irises sweeping over his face as though she were studying him, mapping him, memorising him.

He rose up to nose at her hair, pressing kisses there that left her toes curling and her fingers grasping at his wide shoulders, pulling him closer closer closer. His lips found her gland again, closing over the swollen skin in a tight seal, his tongue lapping at her like she his first taste of water after years of desert heat, and he had barely began to taste it properly when she felt her pleasure burst forth. 

Pleasure exploded in front of her like a physical proxy, all heat and tightness and blind pleasure, and she was nearly bowled over by the sensation, by the way he didn’t let up on her, not even for a second, the push and pull of his cock, the gentle jerk of his fingers, the lazy drag of tongue on teeth and soft lips.

His pleasure crested as hers did, his knot anchoring them together as he filled her with wave after wave of hot spend, finally finally _finally_ cooling the burning heat that curled through her body like sparks of fire catching on dry brush.

She screamed his name loud enough to pierce the silence of the forest like a clap of thunder, and it pleased him to to end know that in that moment, even in the midst of her heat, even as she met her orgasm headlong and unflinchingly, that she was thinking of him. Not his alpha, not his cock, not his seed or his gland or his bite_. _Just_ him_.

Ben held her tight to him, roaring with his release, the alpha inside him banging its chest and rearing its head and shouting in pleasure as he finally achieved what he had so long wanted. His hips slowed as his come flooded her waiting body, wanting to fill her up as he had wanted to for weeks and weeks and weeks, and his lips found hers again. He claimed her lips once more, kissing her long and deep and slow, somehow completely at odds with the way she still stretched around his knot, with the way his cock continued to flood her with his spend.

She sank down on top of him, her legs falling on either side of his hips weakly, suddenly too exhausted to even lift herself any longer. Instead she settled against his chest, her ear pressed to the cavern of his broad chest, listening to the staccato beat of his tired heart and the kind words whispered against the shell of her ear.

"You did so well, omega." he crooned, instinct once more taking over to soothe his sated omega, feeling her sink into his arms.

The words fulfilled some goal within her she had never before thought of, her omega proud and preening within, pleased at the way she had made her alpha so happy. He brushed the hair from her face as he kissed her temple, telling her how good she felt, how much he had missed her, how glad he was to be hers.

He brushed the hair from her face, kissing her bare shoulder and letting his hand sweep lazily up and down her back, tracing shapes with his fingers that made gooseflesh pepper her skin. Ben wrapped his arms around her back, gently pulling her to lay across him, ever mindful of the knot that locked them together, and even as his cock continued to pulse and throb inside of her, completely sated, he could feel himself stir just ever so slightly as he looked between them and found his knot standing firm and heavy, slotted perfectly between here legs.

"I love you." he said quietly, pulling her dark hair through his fingers absently. The words were uttered softly, casually, freely, but there was an irresolute firmness hiding behind the words that proved their significance was not to be taken lightly.

Rey beamed at him, bringing her lips to the healing scar on his cheek and kissing it tenderly. He wanted to count her freckles, to spend the rest of his life memorising every inch of her face and her body and her mind, until he could recall every wonderful detail about her even in sleep, even in death.

She settled back into her place on his chest, her fingertips tracing absently around the curled tail of his scar, and when she spoke it carried an direct unreservedness that made the simple words come alive, made clear their meaning to Ben, even if she hadn't directly said the words. "I know."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES i upped the chapter count ONE! FINAL! TIME!! YES this fic did get away from me. YES i know you are all very cross with me NO i do not care because YES i know you will really, really, really like the final chapter <3

**Author's Note:**

> there are some ABO terms mentioned in this fic, so if you're new to ABO or if anyone needs a refresher [check out this link!](https://www.wattpad.com/546924059-the-non-official-guide-to-the-omegaverse-basic/page/2)
>
>> 


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